Pluto once again the most distant

WASHINGTON (AP) - Tiny Pluto slips outside the orbit of Neptune today to resume its role as the farthest planet from the sun.

This return to normal comes just days after the littlest planet survived an attack that threatened to strip it of its planetary status altogether.

Normally the most distant planet, Pluto has an unusual orbit that takes 248 Earth-years to complete one trip around the sun. During just 20 of those years, it moves inside Neptune's orbit to become the eighth planet instead of the ninth.

Pluto moved inside Neptune's orbit on Feb. 7, 1979, and was on course to cross back outside at 5:08 a.m. EST today, scientists at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration calculated.

Pluto will remain the most distant planet for the next 228 years.

Just last week, the Paris-based International Astronomical Union, the world's leading astronomical organization, reaffirmed Pluto's standing as the smallest planet.

News reports had said Pluto might be demoted to a minor planet, or - worse - a trans-Neptunian object.

"No proposal to change the status of Pluto as the ninth planet in the solar system has been made by any division, commission or working group of the IAU responsible for solar system science," said the 80-year-old organization, the final authority on astronomical matters.

Even though Pluto was crossing Neptune's orbit, there was no worry about a collision, NASA said, because the planets were going to be far apart at the time.

Pluto was discovered Feb. 18, 1930, by Clyde Tombaugh at Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Ariz. Its moon, Charon, was found in 1979.

With a diameter of 1,430 miles, Pluto is less than half the size of any other planet and only two-thirds as big as Earth's moon.